Main Menu

Secondary Menu

Author Options:

Is there an easy and cheap way to make a portable freezer? Answered

I'm in need of a portable freezer to freeze ice in an ice vest to allow usage when I don't have access to a conventional freezer.

I know that there are retail portable freezer that run up to the hundreds. I had the thought of using dry ice in some manner. However, I'm not familiar enough with freezers or dry ice to even know where to start on this kind of thing.

Actually, I'm a more techy then I am chemical! I have no issues doing wiring if it will serve my needs. I just though dry ice would work for this, what with the tag line of "five times colder then wet ice!" i see on packs.

As for the coolers, do they get cold enough to freeze the icepacks your talking about?

The advantage of the Chemical Ice Pack no hydro you just need a styrofoam cooler and the Instant Cold Pack.

A chemical Ice Pack or an Instant Cold Pack is a device that consists of two bags; one bag containing water, inside a bag containing Ammonium nitrate, calcium ammonium nitrate or urea. When the inner bag of water is broken by squeezing the package, it is allowed to dissolve the solid in an endothermic reaction. This reaction absorbs heat from the surroundings, quickly lowering the pack's temperature.

The chemical Ice packs and the coolers are the same in that it depends on which one you get and how you use them as to whether they will freeze or just cool.

I live in NE Montana, otherwise known as NEMONT which is what one of the phone companies named itself. Hence I have first hand knowledge of the freezing capacity. One of the first things new people learn --- Don't leave groceries in the car unless you actually want them frozen.

By the way, an idea I once kicked around was to set up an underground storage tank with heat exchanger tubing running through it. Fill it with water and open it up in the winter and let it freeze solid. In the spring, close it up and insulate it. In the summer run fluid through the exchange tubing and get all the air conditioning you could ever want. Probably be able to make and run a refrigerator for it also.